British School, Searched in Inquiry, Was Used to Train Police

By ALAN COWELL

Published: September 5, 2006

In a strange twist to Britain's newest terrorism scare, a regional police force admitted Monday that it had sent officers for ''diversity training'' to an Islamic school that the police searched Sunday as part of a crackdown on jihadist recruiters and trainers.

In a statement, the Sussex police said the Jameah Islameah school south of London ''has been used by officers and staff undergoing advanced training for their role as diversity trainers to the rest of the work force.''

''This has involved a series of one-day visits to the schools by groups of two or three trainers on up to 15 occasions over more than a year,'' the statement continued.

The statement cast an ambiguous light on other police actions since 14 people were arrested overnight on Friday in what the police described as a hunt for terrorist recruiters and trainers. Within hours of the arrests, the police sealed off the Jameah Islameah school, located in a former convent and ballet school in rural East Sussex, and began to search its grounds.

Late on Sunday, a court gave the police permission to continue holding three of the 14 people until Wednesday. The court said the other 11 could be held until Friday under new counterterrorism laws permitting 28 days of detention without charge.

The search of the school grounds continued Monday. Its principal, Bilal Patel, has said that, some years ago, Abu Hamza al-Masri, a firebrand cleric now serving a prison term for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred, had used the school's weekend campgrounds. Mr. Patel said he had asked Mr. Masri not to return.

It was not the first time the school had been linked to allegations associated with terrorism. A report in the local Kent and Sussex Courier in January 1999 quoted local police officials as saying that they were baffled by suggestions that the school's camping facilities may have been used by five Britons held in Yemen and accused of planning terrorist attacks.

The foreign secretary at that time, Robin Cook, told Parliament then that the purported link to the five detainees in Yemen had been investigated and that no British laws had been broken. Separately, the United States authorities are seeking the extradition of Mr. Masri on charges related to the kidnapping of 16 hostages in Yemen, including two Americans, around the same period.

The Sussex police force insisted that it was not embarrassed by speculation about its ties with the school.

The school's Islamic instruction, a police statement said, allowed officers to ''take advantage of the resources available to us in the community to improve our knowledge and awareness of the many diverse communities that we serve in Sussex.''

The Daily Mirror, which first reported the developments in its Monday editions, teased the police, suggesting that while police personnel ''studied the Koran, members of an alleged suicide bomber terrorist cell were being trained for martyrdom almost under their noses.''

Initial news reports said most of the people arrested over the weekend were Britons of Pakistani descent. But other reports on Monday said some might have been converts from Christianity. British newspapers said the detainees included Abu Abdullah, an associate of Mr. Masri. Calls to Mr. Abdullah's two cellphones went unanswered.

Police officials have said that the investigation of the school is part of an inquiry into terrorist training and recruitment unrelated to any specific conspiracy, like the alleged plot to bomb trans-Atlantic airliners uncovered on Aug. 10. There have been no arrests among the school's staff.

On Monday, a court returned eight of the people held since Aug. 10 to prison to await their trial, which may not get under way until 2008.

Of those held Aug. 10, 11 have been charged with conspiracy to murder and planning to bomb airliners and four have been accused of lesser crimes. Five more people are being held without charge until Wednesday, when they will have spent the maximum 28 days in detention permitted by the new law.

The rising number of people in detention is just one facet of what Prime Minister Tony Blair depicts as an ''elemental'' battle with terrorism, fought in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, where Britain has sent thousands of troops in support of American and NATO forces.

The cost is beginning to tell, both in a mounting death toll and in a debate over whether British forces have become overstretched by fighting on several fronts.

In an interview with The Guardian on Monday, Britain's army chief of staff, Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt, said British forces were ''running hot, certainly running hot.''

''Can we cope?'' he asked. ''I pause. I say: just.''

The general, who took over the position last week, urged a ''national debate'' over the scale of Britain's defense spending. At the same time, Kim Howells, a Foreign Office minister visiting Afghanistan, said Britain was doing ''more than its share of what is required in Afghanistan,'' the Press Association reported, urging other NATO countries to do more.

The remarks coincided with new fatalities, in addition to 14 British military personnel who died when a Nimrod reconnaissance plane crashed in Afghanistan over the weekend. One British soldier died in a suicide attack on a NATO convoy in Kabul, while two more British troops died near Basra in southern Iraq. A British tourist was also killed in Jordan by a gunman shouting ''God is great'' in Arabic.

Referring to the three incidents, Mr. Blair said: ''The global terrorist threat, which is trying to stop these countries getting on their feet or to kill vulnerable, innocent people, like has happened today in Jordan, is aimed to make us lose heart and make us fearful about standing up for what is right. Our response has to be to stand firm.''